Field
The present disclosure relates to passive systems of powering and cooling with liquid metal and methods of using the same in a nuclear reactor.
Description of Related Art
Modern nuclear reactors use a variety of digital systems for both control and safety. These systems must be redundant, diverse, fault tolerant and extensive in self-diagnosis while the system is in operation. Meanwhile, in the digital industry, the desire to increase computational power while decreasing component sizes results in local heat generation within a digital device. Even more damaging heat can occur when this is coupled with the extreme unknown conditions of a nuclear power plant during a severe accident, in which the ambient temperature surrounding electronic components could result in digital system faults. In other words, “loss of integrity” and/or “loss of operation” of digital systems due to high heat environments is attained.
Further, conventional digital systems have power supplies and heat removal systems such as fans or heat sinks in the control cabinets. Large server ‘farms’ are essentially located within large cooled refrigerators so that the digital equipment operates at its optimal temperature. However, as digital systems get faster (e.g., boiling water reactor (BWR) has a data sampling rate measured in milliseconds with computer chips operating in the MHz ranges), it becomes more difficult for a nuclear power plant control system to establish an environment like a server farm and the cooling system must operate at an extreme level. Previous techniques in the industry have used liquid cooling (water) to better dissipate heat for faster and denser electronic components.